### CODEBOOK for  "Confirmation Wars, Legislative Time, and Collateral Damage: Assessing the Impact of Supreme Court Nominations on Presidential Success in the U.S. Senate" by Tony Madonna, Jamie Monogan, and Rich Vining ###

Our replication data consist of four files, all of which are called by our replication R script (mvmReplicationwFigs.R). Two data files are related to the president's policy proposals during a term of Congress, and the other two are related to the president's nominees for lower federal courts during a term of Congress. All four files are formatted as a stacked panel in which line is uniquely identified as a proposal-month or a nomination-month. Proposals and nominations are included for each month until either (A) the proposal or nomination passes the Senate, or (B) the term of Congress ends. 

Our primary dependent variable is *passed2* in the policy files, which is coded 1 the month of passage and 0 otherwise. Policies drop out of the data set after passage or when the Senate's term ends. Policies that are never passed by the Senate are right-censored and therefore coded as a string of zeroes. In the judicial nomination files, our dependent variable is called *confirmed2*, which is coded 1 the month a nominee passes his or her confirmation vote and 0 otherwise. Again, nominees are right-censored at the end of a a Senate term; if renominated in the subsequent term, this is treated as a new nomination. Right-censored nominations therefore are a string of zeroes. In the remainder of this codebook, each variable in these four files is described.

Two files--important.dta and routine.dta--are related to the president's important and routine policy proposals, respectively. The variables recorded in these two files are as follows:
*propspec: A brief summary of the proposed policy's content.
*signedas: The name of the bill after it was signed into law. (Text "---" appears if the proposal was not enacted as a law.)
*proposal_ID: Numeric index that uniquely identifies each policy proposal. (IDs defined separately in important.dta and routine.dta.)
*loc_year: Year that a policy proposal is being considered.
*loc_month: Month that a policy proposal is being considered.
*loc_time: Year and month that a policy proposal is being considered, in YYYYMM format.
*livemonth: Number of months into a two-year term of Congress. (Ranges 1-24.)
*post_mid: Indicator variable coded 1 for a term of Congress after a midterm election, 0 otherwise.
*congress_2: Numeric record of the term of Congress in session. (Ranges 95-111).
*passed2: Indicator variable coded 1 if the proposal passed in the Senate in that month. Coded 0 if the proposal was pending but had not yet passed the Senate at that time. Once a proposal passes, subsequent months are not recorded. Proposals that never pass are not observed after the term of Congress ends.
*scsentences: The number of sentences in presidential speeches in support of any nominee for the Supreme Court in a given month.
*scmonth: Indicator variable coded 1 if a Supreme Court nomination is pending, 0 otherwise.
*sctrend: Trend term for number of months a Supreme Court nomination has been ongoing.
*exog_event: Indicator variable coded 1 if a major exogenous event occurred in a given month, 0 otherwise.
*fil_distance: The distance between the president and the Senate filibuster pivot using the first dimension of DW-NOMINATE.
*presApp: The president's public approval rating in a given month.
*sTerm: Indicator variable coded 1 if the president is in his second term, 0 otherwise.
*midtermyear_unifsen: Indicator variable coded 1 if it is a midterm election year and the Senate is of the president's party, 0 otherwise.

Two files--district.dta and circuit.dta--are related to judicial nominations in the district and circuit courts, respectively. The variables recorded in these two files are as follows:
*nominee: Name of the district or circuit court nominee pending before the Senate.
*nominee_ID: Numeric index that uniquely identifies each person to ever receive a district or circuit court nomination. (IDs defined separately in district and circuit court files.)
*nominee_Cong_ID: Numeric index that uniquely identifies each district or circuit court nominee by term of Congress. In other words, if a candidate is renominated, that would count as a unique observation on this index. (IDs defined separately in district and circuit court files.)
*loc_year: Year that a district or circuit court nomination is being considered.
*loc_month: Month that a district or circuit court nomination is being considered.
*loc_time: Year and month that a nominee is being considered, in YYYYMM format.
*livemonth: Number of months into a two-year term of Congress. (Ranges 1-24.)
*post_mid: Indicator variable coded 1 for a term of Congress after a midterm election, 0 otherwise.
*congress_2: Numeric record of the term of Congress in session. (Ranges 95-111).
*confirmed2: Indicator variable coded 1 if the district or circuit court nominee was confirmed in that month. Coded 0 if the nomination was pending and the nominee had not yet been confirmed at that time. Once a nominee is confirmed, subsequent months are not recorded. Nominees who are never confirmed are not observed after the term of Congress ends.
*scsentences: The number of sentences in presidential speeches in support of any nominee for the Supreme Court in a given month.
*scmonth: Indicator variable coded 1 if a Supreme Court nomination is pending, 0 otherwise.
*sctrend: Trend term for number of months a Supreme Court nomination has been ongoing.
*exog_event: Indicator variable coded 1 if a major exogenous event occurred in a given month, 0 otherwise.
*fil_distance: The distance between the president and the Senate filibuster pivot using the first dimension of DW-NOMINATE.
*presApp: The president's public approval rating in a given month.
*sTerm: Indicator variable coded 1 if the president is in his second term, 0 otherwise.
*midtermyear_unifsen: Indicator variable coded 1 if it is a midterm election year and the Senate is of the president's party, 0 otherwise.
*aba2: American Bar Association (ABA) rating of the district or circuit court nominee's qualifications. (Ranges from 1-6, with higher values meaning better qualified.)
*min2: Indicator variable coded 1 if the district or circuit court nominee belongs to a racial minority, 0 otherwise.
*gender: Indicator variable coded 1 if the district or circuit court nominee is a woman, 0 otherwise.
*renom: Indicator variable coded 1 if the district or circuit court nominee has been renominated after a past nomination, 0 otherwise.
*pending_noms: The number of pending judicial nominations in the Senate.
*bork: Indicator variable coded 0 for 1977-1988, and coded 1 for 1989-2010 for every term of Congress since the 1987 Robert Bork nomination.
*nonpres: The proportion of members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who are not of the president's party.
